Lunch on the Autobahn

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We all love the idea of Germany's Autobahn system, especially those portions of it still permitting unlimited speed. Drive a sufficiently fast car, get in the left lane, pedal to the metal—and watch your mirrors! This last point is particularly important because others invariably have faster cars and you want to move over, oftimes with serious braking, before they flash their lights in impatience.

On a recent Sunday in July, the 60 kilometer stretch in western Germany between Duisburg and Dortmund celebrated "Still Life," an assemblage of more than 3 million picnickers, some 1 million arriving by bicycle, filling 20,000 picnic tables. The European Union chose the Ruhr region of Germany this year as its European Capital of Culture, and what better recognition of this than sausages, cheeses, wine and the other proper accompaniments of Gemültlichkeit.